House and Senate Republicans launch a "majority-approved" budget, without agreement from Gov. Tom Wolf

Leaders of Pennsylvania's Republican House and Senate majorities announced agreement Friday on a $30.1 billion budget that they expect to pass and send to Gov. Tom Wolf in time for the new fiscal year July 1.

The legislative product is not the result of negotiations with the Democrat governor, however, and may be vetoed once it reaches his desk.

The GOP leaders said they believe Pennsylvanians can live comfortably with their plan, which they noted includes spending increases for all levels of public education, meets the state's scheduled pension payments and does not rely on any new taxes.

Details are expected to be made available later Friday, but the GOP spending plan does include a $100 million increase in funding for basic education subsidies, clears a backlog in state reimbursements for school construction, and a 3 percent increase in appropriations to the state's public universities.

"We hope that the governor will understand that the people of Pennsylvania, although they elected a new governor, they did not elect a new philosophy of massive tax increases, and massive spending at historic levels," said House Majority Leader David Reed, R-Indiana County.

The initial reaction from the Wolf Administration - which did not participate in these Republican-to-Republican negotiations - was not good.

"This is another gimmick-filled budget that once again just exacerbates the deficit," said Wolf's press secretary Jeff Sheridan. "It's really disappointing for the people of Pennsylvania that they are not willing to have real conversation with us."

Sheridan stopped short of predicting a veto, but he noted that the GOP plan fails to meet the governor's school funding targets - Wolf had called for four times as much in new basic education subsidies, or $400 million.

The Repubican plan also does not include a severance tax on natural gas production - another centerpiece of Wolf's 2014 gubernatorial campaign - or property tax relief.

If Wolf would veto all or portions of the GOP-backed plan, most aspects of state government would not be dramatically affected for several weeks.

The Republican plan follows several weeks of closed-door negotiations with the governor and his staff that have done as much to highlight deep philosophical differences as produce new consensus.

Throughout that process, the GOP leaders openly noted that they were reserving the option to pass a plan of their own creation if they didn't feel they were seeing significant enough concessions from the first-year governor.

That's where we're at.

Republicans said their plan meets the mandate their historic majorities took from voters last fall: "To rein in state government spending, and to hold the line on taxes," as Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Centre County, put it.

"If I were the governor I would sign these pieces of legislation and declare victory," said House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny County. "These are winners, moving Pennsylvania into the 21st Century.

The Republicans said they were able to hit their targets through a combination of:

* Higher tax collection projections for 2015-16, based in part on revenue surpluses this year.

* Lower state welfare caseloads than the Wolf Administration has projected.

* Fund transfers.

* A projected $220 million from privatization of Pennsylvania's alcohol monopoly.

The Republican plan is a stark contrast from Wolf's proposal, which called for cumulative tax increases of $4.6 billion, though much of that money would be returned to homeowners in 2016 through school property tax cuts.

Acknowledging that the GOP-backed plan's prospects may not be good with Wolf, Corman expressed satisfaction that the House and Senate had developed a plan that was responsive to their constituents.

"We will continue to work with him (Wolf, in the event of a veto)," Corman said. "But none of us are gong back to our districts and hearing people say: 'You really need to tax child care. You really need to tax home health care. You really need to tax accounting services.' Our constituents aren't telling us that.

"So what we did is we lived with what we had, still made some great investments, and I think put a budget in that's good for Pennsylvania."